An effort led by northern Kentucky GOP Congressman Thomas Massie to force the release of all U.S. Department of Justice documents related to notorious child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein cleared a major procedural hurdle Wednesday.
Massie first filed a discharge petition in July to force a House vote on his resolution to release the so-called “Epstein files,” but finally picked up the necessary 218th signature Wednesday, after Rep. Adelita Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat, was sworn into office.
President Donald Trump has heavily criticized Massie’s effort and warned Republicans not to join him, but Massie and three other GOP members defied him on the Epstein petition, along with all Democrats.
A floor vote on the Epstein resolution is now required by early December, though GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson said late Wednesday that he may allow a vote as early as next week.
More Republicans are expected to join Massie and Democratic co-sponsor Rep. Ro Khanna when the resolution gets a floor vote. Other Republicans have expressed confidence in the House Oversight Committee’s efforts to review the Epstein matter, which is chaired by Rep. James Comer of Kentucky.
Massie has angered Trump over his Epstein efforts and several other issues, including his vote against Trump’s signature spending bill this summer and his criticism of military strikes in Iran. The president recruited a Republican challenger to run against him next year, and an allied PAC has spent $2 million on attack ads against Massie since this summer.
In an appearance on CNN Wednesday night, Massie was asked why Trump has fought so hard against his Epstein petition.
“I vote with my party 91% of the time, which means I have agreed with the president 91% of the time,” Massie answered. “But when they're protecting pedophiles, when they are blowing our budget, when they are starting wars overseas, I'm sorry, I can't go along with that.”
The House Oversight Committee on Wednesday released 20,000 more documents relating to Epstein, with a few mentioning Trump.
In one 2011 email sent by Epstein to Ghislaine Maxwell — his associate who was also convicted on sex trafficking charges — he called Trump the "dog that hasn't barked" and said one of Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking victims “spent hours at my house" with Trump. Maxwell replied: “I have been thinking about that…”
In another 2019 email from Epstein to author Michael Wolff he wrote that "of course [Trump] knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop," without further elaboration.
The Trump administration recently transferred Maxwell from a federal prison in Florida to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas, shortly after she granted an interview with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. In a transcript of the interview, Maxwell said she never observed inappropriate behavior by Trump — a good friend of Epstein in the 1990s, before a reported fallout — and that she liked Trump and admired “his extraordinary achievement in becoming the President.”
Trump has repeatedly referred to the Epstein files as a “hoax,” which was repeated in a statement Wednesday from White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
"These stories are nothing more than bad-faith efforts to distract from President Trump's historic accomplishments, and any American with common sense sees right through this hoax and clear distraction from the government opening back up again," Leavitt wrote.
If Massie’s Epstein resolution passes the House, it would still have to pass the Senate and receive the signature of the president — or a Congressional override of a presidential veto — in order to go into effect.
